3D Defender
Reviews Summary Sinclair User Issue 5 Writer: Phil Garratt J K Greye, famous for its remarkable 3D Monster Maze, has scored again with 3D Defender. This all-machine-code game for 16K ZX-81s has the player steering the last surviving craft of a once noble battle fleet into action against marauding invaders. Using the keyboard like a joystick, you can climb, dive and bank, watch the stars wheel about and the ground slip past, but keep an eye open for the bad guys and their plasma bolts. The game requires quick reactions and good co-ordination — a minimum of five fingers are in action — and takes a good deal of practice before any score is achieved. Amazing graphics effects are created as the enemy draws closer, more and more detail appearing as the flying saucers loom in your forward scanner. Another winner for £3.95. ZX Computing Issue 3 Writer: Joseph Nicholson The program loaded with no trouble, and after about four minutes the program auto-ran. Impressive instructions rolled up the screen telling me that I was the only space ship that the planet had and I must defend it to the last. Who, me? They must be joking! When I bought this game I was under the impression that this was just an upmarket version of the usual defender games, the idea of 3D Defender hadn't really clicked in my mind. The screen in 3D Defender is what you would see if you were looking through the cockpit of the space craft. The aliens actually fly towards you in full 3D, getting larger as they get nearer. A few instruments appear on the screen as well: a radar, an altimeter, a proximity meter (how near you are to an alien space craft), the number of shields you have and your score. After pressing newline the game began. The graphics was outstanding. After getting myself accustomed to the non-standard movement keys (the game does not use the cursor keys to move, but the movement keys are arranged to stimulate joystick control. Once this has been mastered, the game feels much more realistic) I decided to try and "save the planet from the marauding alien space craft" as the instructions for the cassette put it. This was nowhere near as easy as it seemed. Whenever I got near to the beggers they would either shoot their Plasmo at me and shoot me down or I would actually collide with one of their space craft instead of shooting it. Every now and again meteors would zoom across the screen and if you hit one of them one of your lives would be lost. After about one hour, yes, one hour!, I shot my first alien, 250 the score read, but that didn't stay there for long as everytime an alien lands on the earth 50 points is deducted from the score. My score was reduced to 0 in about 30 seconds! It took me almost another hour to really get the hang of it, this is certainly not an easy game. In the instructions for the cassette they told you how to alter the speed of the game, you and the aliens. I decided to change the speed of the aliens (slower of course!). You get out of the program by pressing the EDIT key (the break key has no effect). This proved rather difficult, as the program recognised the SHIFT key as a key in its own right. I soon found that by pressing the 1 key (the key with EDIT written on it) without the shift depressed it worked perfectly. Inspection of the program revealed that the game was written almost completely in machine code with only 2 lines of BASIC. A SAVE line (which makes it RUN automatically upon loading) and a RAND USR line. Having POKEed the alien to its slowest speed, the game was still fast, but not so fast that I couldn't play properly. About the best way I can sum up this game is "GREAT"! The game is good value at £4.95, with graphics second only to the real arcade game. My only minus for the game is that it does take quite a long time to learn to play properly. But then, most games that are too simple become boring after a time anyway. Recommended. Category:ZX81 Games Category:J.K. Greye Software Category:Sinclair User Reviews Category:New Generation Software Category:ZX Computing Reviews